How to Make Interactive Halloween Decorations with Scratch

Sometimes the thing that can make your house the best house on the block to trick or treat at is good decorations. Scary decorations. Decorations that seem to activate by themselves.

Steps

1
Install the Scratch software from ^[1]
2
Open the Scratch software by double clicking on the Scratch icon. It should look somewhat like the image.
3
Go to where it says New Sprite.
4
Click on the folder with a star in the background then click on fantasy.
5
Scroll down until you see the Sprite labeled " ghoul1-a" click on that and you should see it appear in the upper right white area where the cat is.
6
On the bottom left right-click on the sprite labeled "Sprite1" and click on the delete button for it.
7
Click on the ghoul in the white part of the window.
8
In the top middle of the screen there is a tab next to Scripts that says Costumes. Click on that.
9
Click on the import button.
10
Click on the Fantasy button and then choose "ghoul1-b".
11
Click OK.
12
Go to the upper left section of the window where you should see 8 labels that say: Motion, Looks, Sound, Pen, Control, Sensing, Operators, and Variables.
13
Click on the one that says Control. Click on the scripts tab at the top center of the window and then click on the Control button in the top right corner of the window.
14
Drag in a "when green flag click" block and put it in the center of the window that has the grey stripes.
15
Put in a "Forever if " block from the from the same group right below the when green flag clicked block and the two should click together.
16
Click on the sound button in the top right corner of the window.
17
Drag in a play sound block and place it in the forever if block.
18
Go to the Sounds tab which is next to the Costumes and Scripts tabs.
19
Click on the import button and click on Animal.
20
Scroll down to the bottom and click on "WolfHowl" then click OK.
21
Go back to the Scripts tab and set the playsound property to WolfHowl by clicking on the Black arrow and selecting it.
22
Go back to the Control button in the top left section of the window and select a "repeat 10" and drag it in after the play sound block.
23
Click on the number ten and set it to 5.
24
Click on the Looks button in the top right of the window and get out the "next costume" block.
25
Drag it into the repeat 5 and then click on the Control button and get out a wait block.
26
Drag it to below the next costume block and click on the 1 and set it to 0.5 so the block now says wait 0.5 secs.
27
Click on the Looks button and select the "next costume" block and drag it below the wait block.
28
Go to the Motion button and click it.
29
Select the "glide 1 secs to x: y:" block and place it below the "next costume" block and set the 1 to 0.5 by clicking on it and entering the new number.
30
Go to the Operators button in the top left and take out 2 "pick random 1 to 10" blocks and place them in the places after the "x:" and "y:" in the "glide 0.5 secs to x: y:" block set the first number on the first "pick random" to -100 and the second number of the first "pick random" to 100. Do that for the second "pick random" block.
31
Plug in the microphone to the computers microphone jack and click on the green flag in the top right corner of the Scratch window.
32
Try saying something into the microphone. The "ghoul" moves and a wolf howls when you make noise!
33
You can apply this two ways:
- To mount the computer somewhere where a trick or treater will be able to see the screen but not too easily and mount the microphone with the duct tape on the wall nearby or some other place where it will pick up the noise from the person approaching.
- BY building a laser tripwire that they will cross triggering a buzzer that will trigger the microphone causing the program to run! If you chose the first option you're done! Congratulations! Otherwise you still have work to do.
34
Collect all the parts that are labeled optional.